Chrysler Deal from an Historical Perspective:
David Skeel says the Chrylser deal would "Horrify a New Dealer."
Of course, one needn't be a New Dealer in order to be horrified by the Chrysler deal!
Chrysler Deal from an Historical Perspective:
David Skeel says the Chrylser deal would "Horrify a New Dealer." Of course, one needn't be a New Dealer in order to be horrified by the Chrysler deal! |
A Chrysler dealer kneels down at his bedside and prays, "Dear God, let me be an imported car dealer."
The next morning he wakes up and he's a Chrysler dealer in Tokyo.
Would any sane person want to be a car dealer, ever?
In years past, it was a way to make a living (I will let others debate whether it is an honest living).
My beloved Utah Jazz were saved from either demise or a forced move because a car dealer, Larry Miller, stepped forward and bought the team.
Fortunately, we've now figured out a way to circumvent all this. The insiders doing the deal-foisting are in Washington, and they are also the only bidder, as Fiat is providing nothing.
The Beltway process efficiency would make Henry Ford proud.
Which is good, because the residue of his nepotistically-eroded achievement will be in the dock soon, right after GM.
So, Dave N., as we bitterly disappointed fans of the Detroit Pistons discuss how to re-tool our team, the name Carlos Boozer gets mentioned a lot. Opinions?
I am not sure any boozer could ever be truly happy in Utah.
You might want to actually read the article you linked, dmv, instead of just looking for a quote that allows you to believe you scored a point.
He basically reiterates and agrees with the major concerns about this deal: "I think we have to concede that this control [of the TARP creditors by Treasury], and the conflict it creates, and the President’s decision to publicly scold the dissenting senior lenders has tainted this process"; "never know for sure and in that sense the process is tainted, and I think this is not harmless."; " As I’ve written, too much of the decision to avoid chapter 11 in the recent crisis has been driven by unwarranted fear of chapter 11, driven by either a serious misunderstanding of what modern chapter 11 practice entails, or an intentional effort to create fear and panic about chapter 11, to support the case for a bailout".
He brings up many of the points raised by opponents of the deal, and while he attaches a different value than some of us, he doesn't simply disregard it.
Allan -- nearly all lawyers (including judges) stopped worrying about such questions in 1937
On this particular issue, I'd go one year earlier, to Butler.
Art. II, Sec. 8.
I think this covers much of the bailout, where you think it helps the U.S. or not.
Notice I did not put the word "get" in quotes. Is "regulate interstate commerce" to be read as "do any damn thing the feds want to do"?
Well, there you go.
The point of the statement (the deal would "horrify a New Dealer") is that New Dealers are all for government interventions in general, but that the Chrysler deal is so over-the-top and corrupt that even they would find it objectionable.
www.optoons.blogspot.com
So that's a blank check for the feds to do any damn thing they please? What happened to the idea of enumerated powers? How does it jive with the 10th Amendment? Why would anybody reserve to the states and the people all powers not delegated by the Constitution to the feds, if in fact the feds have the power to do any damn thing they please, including robbing us blind to prop up failing private firms, or indeed robbing the senior creditors of a bankrupt firm in order to turn it over to the labor union?
Yes, the Federal government sure has to power to spend a lot of money on big interstate things, as it always has. Banks are quite important to interstate commerce AND general welfare, wouldn't you think?
As for the robbing us blind bit, the Constitution created a democracy, so the founders were not so worried about "the feds" taxing us blind. There remain pretty strong electoral pressures against that. It takes something like a full-blown financial crisis to get the populace at all okay with that. Perhaps the founders should have been more worried, perhaps not.
Now if you ask about the administrative state, there is a Constitutional issue.]
But it's not clear that the objecters have any legal ground. Chrysler did take Uncle Sam's money, which does seem to have gone, in part, to the creditor's benefit. Do the creditors have a credible case that if Chrysler hadn't taken Uncle Sam's money with its conditions, they have ended up with a better deal? If they don't, it's harm to see how they can argue that the deal as a whole harms them. Of course they'd like the money without any of the conditions, but we'd all like that, wouldn't we?
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